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Business owners have a lot to manage, including their time. Trying to do everything at once and
spending valuable hours on the wrong projects can destroy your
productivity. Worse, it can send the wrong message to your
staff - and that's never good.

"As the leader of the organization, I better know how to
use my time well. Because if I don't, how the heck will
my team be clear on how they should use their time?" says
Rachael Chong, the CEO and founder of
Catchafire, a business that matches
professional talent with non-profit demand.

That's why Chong says she maintains a list of three top
priorities and makes sure that all her time is devoted to those
tasks.

"When you start to track your time, you start to see you are
spending time on things that perhaps are not the most strategic,"
Chong told Entrepreneur.com in October at The Feast, an annual social innovation
conference held in New York City.

Chong used her interview with Entrepreneur.com as an example.
"The time I am spending with you guys -- that is a decision that
I have to make. Is half an hour with you the best use of my time?
Or is it going back to the office and writing a proposal, for
instance." (We'd like to think she chose wisely.)

Chong's three priorities may be fluid. At particularly pivotal
moments in the growth of her New York City-based business, Chong
reassesses what her three priorities should be. Then, she sticks
-- as much as is possible -- to devoting time to projects and
tasks that support those missions. Chong mirrors that process of
identifying three key time-priorities with her team, too.

Chong started Catchafire in 2009 after working in both the
investment banking and nonprofit industries. As a professional,
she realized that there was not an efficient way for her to
identify opportunities for her to donate her expertise and time.
In the nonprofit sector, she realized that there was a tremendous
need for affordable professional talent.

"We often don't think of nonprofits as companies. But they are.
And companies need everything from technology help to design help
to marketing help," Chong says. On Catchafire, the most
frequently demanded skill is marketing, communication and
branding expertise.